A Stitch in Time
by Pip LeBeau
Summary: (Rewritten) A girl's mutant powers show up with seriously bad timing, leaving her to deal with the effects. (X-Men show up later, promise.)


**Disclaimer: Contrary to public belief, I do not own the X-Men. I do however own…*fishes in pockets*…an supreme piece of lint. Marvel, eat my dust.**

**A/N: Hey everyone – I originally put this story up during the summer, but I've had a little time to go over it now and make some significant changes, hopefully for the better. And yes, the X-Men will be in this – next chapter I think, or the one after. Please feel free to review this for me, and *huge* thanks to Zeelee and summers2004. You two reviewed this the first time round, and were a great help, even if you don't remember doing it. ^^**

Rhianne threw her bag onto a nearby bench. It skidded to the end and slammed into the wall, with the unmistakable crack of a plastic container cracking into pieces. There goes lunch, she thought sullenly. She sat down on the bench by her bag, and began rifling through it. Her sandwich had fallen out of the cracked Tupperware box, and the pages of her biology textbook were now mingled with grated cheddar cheese. She pulled out her trainers and PE kit, and gave a yell of frustration as they dripped orange juice onto her white shirt. 

She looked around the changing room, and realised that none of the other girls were there. A dawning horror crept over Rhianne as she realised that their bags were there, so they had already gone on out to the pitches. She yanked the sleeve of her slightly threadbare cardigan up, to look at her watch. She was fifteen minutes late. _It's not my fault, she thought furiously. If the head of the year hadn't pulled her up for 'inappropriate uniform', she might have made it to the department on time. Not her fault if Mr Turner insisted on being a total whiner who couldn't have a personality if it killed him. Her uniform was just fine anyway - she couldn't help it that her clothes that fitted her in the shop always seemed to end up baggy on her. _

She came back to herself, still fuming, and realised that she had been lost in her thoughts for almost ten minutes, staring at the cracked tiles below the coat rail of the changing room. She was supposed to be out on the ash pitches by now, at cross country. Come to think of it, she was supposed to be at least in her PE kit, if not outside. She lifted her blue-come-stained-orange polo from the bench where she had tossed it, and started to shake off the excess juice, when an ominous 'clack' echoed through the room. 

Rhianne ran for the door and rattled the handle. It was no use - the door was locked, and looking out the peek-window on the door, she saw her teacher was already half way down the corridor running to get outside. She stormed back through into the changing area and slammed the inside door. 

This day was just getting worse and worse by the minute, Rhianne decided, throwing herself onto the bench. She hadn't been able to concentrate at all in Maths, while the teacher had been trying to enforce on them the principles of.something with triangles. Rhianne couldn't remember what it was, but she did know that the teacher hadn't been best pleased when, daydreaming, she had responded to a question with the word 'pineapple'. 

After being kept behind for five minutes to be given a lecture and a punishment exercise, she had made her way to English where she had first been told off for being late and then reminded of the critical evaluation on some poem that was supposed to be in first thing tomorrow. She had waited for her friends outside the cafeteria for twenty minutes; before remembering that today was the day they all went home for lunch. On the way from the lunch hall, she had been stopped by Mr Turner, and now she was locked in the girls changing rooms for an hour. After which she'd no doubt be given another exercise for skipping the class. 

She yelled in frustration - everything was going wrong today, despite all her best efforts. She beat her hands madly against the bench, before realising that breaking her hands wouldn't be the best end to the day. She looked down at them, but all she could see was the sleeves of her shirt. She could have sworn that they hadn't been that long when she'd first hurtled into the changing rooms. She tugged on one sleeve in annoyance, and it ripped straight off. '_I never pulled it that hard!'_ Rhianne protested furiously. 

Everything was falling apart today. She suddenly became aware of all the bags and clothes, of her friends and other girls in the year, sitting around her. Rhianne would have bet none of them were having this bad a day, even if they were out at cross country right now. She was so upset and frustrated, she didn't notice the bags rising into the air and emptying their contents onto the floor, although somewhere in her subconscious she was the one doing it. A tin pencil case smashing onto the mouldy tiles brought her back to her senses, and she jumped as she looked up and saw all the bags and clothes ripping themselves to shreds.

Rhianne screamed and pressed herself up against the wall, half terrified, half stunned. As she screamed and stopped thinking of anything else but what was going on, the material shreds fell to the floor and lay still. She shrieked again as she realised that she had unconsciously been pulling apart all the cloth in the room. Without touching any of it. 

_'Great_.' She reflected desperately, 'J_ust what I needed. Finding out I'm a mutant and wrecking everyone's stuff. Alone in the room with the door locked. Fabulous.'_

  
~~~~~  
  


Mr Turner looked up furiously at the sixth year girl standing in front of him, instinctively fiddling with her strawberry-blonde hair. Her trousers flared at the bottoms, shrouding her feet and half a metre of the floor around her in black cords. Almost as if her clothes were trying to hide her, he thought, taking in her frayed cardigan and shirt which more than covered her hands.

"Miss Cameron - this isn't the first time I've seen you today, as I'm sure you well know. What on earth were you thinking of? What kind of example is this to set to the new first years?" Turner asked, his face livid. 

The girl simply stared back at him. Something in the way she stood said she didn't care what he was saying anymore. A large bruise on her cheekbone was beginning to show - there had apparently been a fight in the changing rooms between her and a few of the other girls after they had found their wrecked belongings. He assumed that was where she had got the black eye too. 

"I hope you thought about the consequences of your actions before you did all this, Miss Cameron. Blatant disregard for the school rules; a reckless abandon where other people's possessions are concerned; skipping classes, and not to mention a mockery of the school uniform." Turner listed the points on his fingers. "I'm afraid I have no choice. Rhianne Cameron, you are expelled from this high school as of this point. Please collect your things and leave the premises. Your parents have been called to pick you up."

He turned away in contempt, as the office door was opened and the girl left. He turned round again, just as she slammed the door. The glass in the door smashed in on the office, scattering over the carpet.

  
~~~~~   
  
  


Rhianne took off down the corridor, and down the stairs, her hair and clothes flying out in all directions. She was so preoccupied, she ran straight into two girls at the bottom of the stairs. She lifted her eyes to them, and realised it was Nads and Katy, her two best friends. Who were now pressed up against the wall, looking at her like she was some kind of monster.

 Rhianne blinked. "Hey guys - is there a six foot guy with a butcher knife behind me? Why do you two look like rabbits in headlights?" 

Nadine stared for a minute, before seeming to regain her senses. She frowned at Rhianne. "Y-you leave us alone, okay? We don't want any trouble." She said, clearly terrified but suspicious at the same time. 

"Not with your sort." Katy added quietly. Rhianne blinked, trying to figure out what had just come from the only two people she had been really close to in this school for over five years. 

"What?" she asked hesitantly. 

"We heard what happened. We heard what you are." Nadine answered, narrowing her eyes. Rhianne stared. For once the school gossips had been right on the money, and apparently news like that travelled fast. 

She should have known it would - it had to be Kari, the worst gossip in school who unlocked the changing room door, to find Rhianne sitting in the middle of a frantic storm of tiny bits of material. Naturally she had yelled for the teacher, although the pieces had fallen back to the floor by the time Miss Crawson got there. Crawson might just have thought that Rhianne was a vandal or something, but no, Kari had to open her big mouth and spill everything she'd seen to her. Crawson hadn't told anyone, but the gang of guys from her year walking past the door had. Her black eye was from where the charming Jamie had punched her, yelling something slurred about 'filthy muties'. 

"Hey - stop it." Katy said nervously. "Stop looking at us like that, and leave us alone." 

Rhianne bit her lip, trying to hold back from crying or from yelling at the two of them. She didn't want to - they were her friends. They'd always stuck by her. Until now. 

**A/N: Thanks for reading if you got this far – any reviews are welcome. Go ahead, flame if you feel that way inclined. Just let me know *why* you're doing it so I can improve on it. Thanks again! **


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